District News Roundup

A Philadelphia public high-school choir has filed suit in federal
court against the city school district over its efforts to monitor the
choir's personnel and repertoire.

In December the Philadelphia district issued regulations to
implement the Federal Equal Access Act. Under the regulations,
religious and political groups may use school grounds for meetings
after hours as long as the group has no affiliation with the school or
its faculty.

A spokesman for the district said that the Central High School
Gospel Choir violates the regulations because its director is also a
secretary at the school. District officials said that the choir may not
rehearse religious music on school grounds while supervised by a staff
member. If the group practices only secular music on campus, the choir
director may participate.

J. Michael Considine, the lawyer representing the choir, said that
the district is censoring the group, violating members' rights under
both the First and 14th Amendements. The choir's gospel songs, he said,
have a secular element in that they reflect the African-American
cultural heritage. The district's action, he said, is "part of a
frightening nationwide trend towards silencing religious
expression."

The lawsuit also aims to protect the right of the director to
continue working with the choir, an independent student group begun in
1987.

Mr. Considine said a settlement with the district may be
forthcoming.

Federal civil-rights officials are investigating an eastern Kentucky
school district after a parent complained that school officials were
mistreating her 5-year-old son, who has a seizure disorder.

The U.S. Education Department began its investigation of the Pike
County school district last month, according to a department spokesman,
who said the complaint alleges violations of the federal law barring
discrimination against the handicapped.

Reports allege that a teacher bound, gagged, and choked the
5-year-old student. The boy's mother has also complained that the
county has failed to evaluate students' special-education needs.

The investigation, which will evaluate services for handicapped
students as well as disciplinary procedures, follows a recent mistrial
in the case of a special-education teacher in the district who was
charged with criminal abuse for taping a student's hands and feet.

Officials at the Greasy Creek Elementary School have said that the
most recent incident never occurred. Officials in Washington said they
are not certain when the investigation will be completed.

A Florida school district is being sued by adult students who say that
an investment class held at a public school led them to lose up to
$200,000.

The case is one of several nationwide against Prudential Securities
for its methods of selling limited partnerships over the past decade.
It is the first such lawsuit to name a school district.

Six investors are suing the Dade County school board, which hired
the broker to teach the adult-education class, as well as the broker
and his company. The lawsuit charges that the instructor used the class
to capitalize on the adults' financial inexperience to urge them to
make risky investments.

Lee Schillinger, lawyer for the students, said the school board is a
target because its involvement led investors to believe the course
would be objective and closely supervised. A lack of oversight,
however, allowed the broker to recruit students as new clients, Mr.
Schillinger said, and invest their retirement savings in risky limited
partnerships, bond funds, and real-estate investment trusts that went
sour.

After the recent complaints, district officials fired the
instructor--who had taught the course for seven years--for using the
class for personal gain.

A federal judge has ruled that a Texas school district discriminated
against a black principal by passing him over for advancement while
hiring a less-qualified white applicant.

U.S. District Judge Howell Cobb this month ordered the Beaumont
Independent School District to pay $50,000 in damages to Edward
Senigaur, to compensate him for its decision to hire a white
administrator with lesser credentials as a curriculum director.

Judge Cobb found that the district had "intentionally
discriminated'' against Mr. Senigaur on the basis of race when it did
not hire him for the post.

He also ruled, however, that Mr. Senigaur did not prove that the
district was racially biased in two other instances when it passed him
over for promotion.

Joe Austin, the district's superintendent, said that officials have
not yet decided whether to appeal the decision.

A Conway, S.C., teacher who led a boycott by black athletes against the
high-school football team was improperly fired for his actions, a
federal judge has ruled.

U.S. District Judge Clyde Hamilton held this month that the Rev.
H.H. Singleton was acting in his role as president of the local chapter
of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, not
as a school employee, when he supported the boycott in 1989.

The boycott began when a black quarterback was replaced by a
younger, white player before the 1989 season. Mr. Singleton, among
others, charged that the switch was racially motivated, and soon became
a spokesman for the protesters. White parents then threatened to
withdraw their children from his science classes at the local middle
school.

The school board fired Mr. Singleton, saying he was disrupting
education, and the 28-year veteran of the system then filed suit,
charging that his First Amendment right to freedom of speech had been
violated.

Judge Hamilton held that since Mr. Singleton did not discuss the
issue in his classes, he did not disrupt education.

A magistrate will decide on damages in the case. The district is
weighing an appeal.

After two decades of decline or sluggish growth in enrollment, the New
York City public schools are experiencing an unexpected influx of
nearly 18,000 students.

The increase--nearly twice what school planners had predicted for
this school year--was documented in figures released by the board of
education last month.

The nearly 2 percent boost in enrollment was attributed to a new
wave of immigration that planners now predict will intensify in coming
years, possibly bringing the city's school enrollment to more than a
million students by the year 2000.

Enrollment has been below that watermark since 1977. In recent
years, growth has rarely exceeded one-half a percentage point.

The influx has raised concerns that class sizes will be pushed
beyond their mandated 25-pupil maximum. Teachers already have been
hired for or reshuffled to the hardest hit areas, but with the board
preparing for large budget cuts, officials noted, new teachers will be
hard to come by.

Moreover, the $4.3 billion in capital expenses slated through the
1993-94 school year is based on projections completed years ago,
officials said, before the latest enrollment surge.

Two incumbents on the Los Angeles Board of Education have won
re-election, while two other candidates face a runoff election June
4.

The two incumbents, Leticia Quezada and Warren Furutani, retained
their board seats in the April 9 primary. Jeff Horton, a teacher and a
former field representative for Jackie Goldberg, an outgoing board
member, was elected to the board to replace Ms. Goldberg.

United Teachers of Los Angeles supported all of the winning
candidates.

In the race to replace Rita Walters, who is in a runoff for a seat
on the city council, Sterling Delone and Barbara Boudreaux will compete
in a runoff election June 4.

Mr. Delone is a teacher and Ms. Goldberg's current field
representative. Ms. Boudreaux is a principal in Los Angeles.

Another board member, Julie Korenstein, also is in a runoff for a
city-council seat, which could create another opening on the school
board.

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